President Obama and Prime Minister Modi, during the US Presidential Visit to India in January 2015, decided to further strengthen the bilateral US-India partnership by elevating the strategic dialogue between the two countries to a re-branded Strategic and Commercial Partnership.

Ms Sushma Swaraj, Minister of External Affairs, and Ms Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of State (Independent Charge) of Commerce & Industry, India, traveled to Washington, USA, to engage with their US counterparts, Mr John Kerry, Secretary of State, and Ms Penny Pritzker, Secretary of Commerce, for the first ever US-India Strategic and Commercial Dialogue on 22 September 2015.

Coinciding with the dialogue, CII organized several programmes in Washington DC to highlight important aspects of the bilateral partnership, including the role of the diaspora; the critical issues and bottlenecks around Renewable Energy financing; and Indian industry's efforts in bolstering collaboration on Standards.